Trek's John Burke on his father, the 'Big Guy'

Waterloo – When he was 24 years old, John Burke got a call from his father, Dick, the founder of Trek Bicycle Corp.

It was 1986 and Burke was out in California meeting with customers and distributors of the then young company.

His father wanted him back in Wisconsin and fast.

John Burke rushed home. When the two met, the elder Burke said he had some changes in mind for the bicycle company. And one of them was naming the younger Burke the head of sales and marketing.

For John Burke, it was vintage Big Guy, the name he called his father. Dick Burke was a man who was a C student at best in his days at Marquette University, yet carried with him an uncanny business sense and a world-class personality to boot.

Dick Burke died in 2008 at age age of 73 after a lengthy illness. His son, now the president of Trek, has written a book about his father. Called “One Last Great Thing,” the book is part love story, part business treatise and part company and family history.

Burke is donating the proceeds from the book to DreamBikes.

John Burke took a few questions about the book in a recent interview.

Q: On your father’s 70th birthday, he said he had no idea what it would be, but predicted he would do one last great thing. What was it?

A: In my mind, I thought he would give away a massive amount of money and help change the world. He was a great philanthropist.

But to me the last great thing was he showed people how to die. The lessons he left behind. Those are the two things. That’s why I wrote the book.

Q: He told you that you would be running sales and marketing. You were 24. What was your reaction?

A: Game on. I was not short of confidence at all. I spent a year and a half selling. I knew how to sell. I had a front-row seat watching Trek fall apart. When I started it was at its peak in 1984. And when I started it almost fell off the cliff.

Q: He was a C student at Marquette. But he had good business instincts.

A: He may have been a C student, but he never stopped learning. He went back to MIT. So here’s the C student who had plenty of confidence to say, ‘Even though I have a successful business, I’m going back to MIT.'

If he had applied himself, he would have done a lot better. Beyond anything else, he knew how to size people up and put people in the right seats. That’s what he was really good at. He was also great at listening to customers. And no one asked better questions.

Q: Your father once gave a speech at Trek World that you said was brutally honest about the company. Is that the right way for a CEO to behave?

A: I don’t think a lot of people behave this way. But it’s a great way to behave. He was brutally honest. He always told employees what the financial results were. He let them know if things weren’t good. He was brutally honest.

He wasn’t a micro manager. Far from it. But he would tell you exactly what he thought.

Q: In the book, you use the phrase, “Ready, fire and aim.” What is that?

A: He was a planner and he was a finance guy. He’s a credit guy. I’m a sales guy. ...So he would accuse me of being ready, fire and aim. He loved that. I always felt bad about it. So, I’m reading a book one day. I learn there are two types of people: There’s ready, fire and aim. And there’s ready, aim and fire. I felt so much better after reading that.

Q: Does the Big Guy still motivate you?

A: He inspires me. I’m motivated every day. I will think of him. Sometimes issues come up that he would have loved to see. The great financial crisis. He missed that. He loved that kind of stuff.
When big issues came up, especially problems, he would just love it.

Q: What do you hope to accomplish with this book?

A: My goal was to write it so I would have it for my kids. But there is a deep meaning. The last great thing is how he died and letting people know in this book that here is this great man, the dignity and the thought process of how he died. He left these amazing lessons behind.